So Skyrim is "3 months and 24 days away".

My thought is, with all the logistical issues of printing, production, distribution and testing etc. the game has to be near enough finished now. I even suspect it was near completion when they unveiled game footage at E3.


Does anyone know the lead times on these sorts of things?

A scary thought is that right now there could be a CD out there with the complete game on it.....now I just need to work out where http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=bethesda+games+studios&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wl.

They are most assuredly in the beta testing phase at this point. The game will likely go gold in just over 2 months.

The vast majority of the game is likely to be complete, it is most likely towards the final stages of beta testing, with polishing and some minor things still to be added, within the next two months it will be finished and enter into Mass production, and then it will "go gold" and be ready for distribution, but it wont be until then it is finished 100%

The game normally goes gold about 3 weeks before it ships. I don't think it will go gold until mid October, meaning it will be more like 3 months before going gold.

I still say the game will be delayed, or it should be delayed. When you set a hard date 11 months out, like Bethesda did, than you are just asking for problems. Things will get rushed and bugs will be left in the game.

What does 'going gold' mean please?

They've got 3 months left till they ship it, so yes, it's very near completion.

That is when they put the final code on a master disc.

It means they are done adding/fixing things and the disc (I don't think they actually put it on a disc anymore but you know what I mean) has been sent out to be mass produced and stuffed in boxes.

It won't, they picked 11/11/11 for a reason. Besides, they started full development just after Fallout 3 was released in 2008, that makes it 3 years of development.

You see that was my worry.

Is it just me or do bugs in games seem to be more common now. One example was Fable, the game was mediocre at best and about half way through the (short) game, the supposed talkative butler decided to blank me, he was a rude devil, only shouting at me during the game with taunts. Then he blocked me from my sanctuary all together, refusing to let me level up, change clothes and use the world map. Also once I got into the Sanctuary (through crafty backhanded means) he wouldn't let me leave.

My point is, I hope they have no GROUND breaking bugs e.g. I wont have to make a character from scratch again and/or loose all my goodies/ progression.

Did Oblivion have any major doodies?

Thanks for the explanation guys

Naah it will not be delayed nor should be. Bethesda pretty much always did polish their games just fine before they release them. Bethesda make some of the most bug free games out there compared to other developers. Or atleast beth's game bugs are minor and not game braking.

No, they have always been in releases. Maybe way back in the day when the PC was pretty much Adventure games there were less bugs. But once publishers stepped in to front money to developers to make game due to increasing costs, combined with the internet becoming more accessible to the masses for accessing patches, bugs have been the norm every since.

Maybe it's changing for consoles. I don't own one but it seems consoles are seeing more bugs in games. Welcome to the PC world. :celebration:

Basically they're done they just want to sit playing it for 3 months.

I'm sure the game is 98% finished and they are doing months of testing now, as Skyrim will be a massive game.

Games ussualy take 2-5 years to make, so delays are very unlikely

Lots of testing and bug squashing, as well as an odd feature here and there. The development phase sort of blends into the testing phase.

It doesn't matter when they started. I don't like like the idea of a release date 11 months out. That means anything missed won't be fixed, no matter how bad it is. That means that if something doesn't work right it will likely be cut instead of trying to make it work. That means you are rushing yourselves to meet a deadline that very easily could have been pushed back if you hadn't of given such a firm date almost a year before the game is released.

A release date for a game, no matter the kind of game, should be given no earlier than 4 months prior.

Oblivion had THOUSANDS of bugs in the game, which when combined were very big hassles. Oblivion had several patches of bug-fixes but even then they still missed near 2000 of them which were fixed by modders and the "unofficial oblivion patch"

I hope they're still working on it. The longer they work on it, the less bugs.
It shouldn't be up to the fans to mop up after the devs,
I hated HATED crashing in Morrowind and Oblivion, as well as the numerous other things that either didn't work period or functioned oddly.
And I shouldn't have to fumble around through the debug console just to get unstuck from a door. I shouldn't get stuck in a door period!+

Honestly I don't think they would have given the 11/11/11 release date unless the game was already nearly complete and they are just working out bugs and such. You could image the fan rage if they miss that date, or worse yet, miss the Christmas season.

They're probably done with the engine and all that, so I hope they've got these last months just adding quests and werecreatures and checking for bugs.

I have been waiting for this game for 5 years. I swear if it gets delayed i'll go all the way to America and kick Todd Howard square in the balls.

I expect it to go gold sometime in October, most likely in the beta testing stage at the moment. So yes, it's pretty much done besides touch-ups and bug fixes.

Bethesda should be more like Blizzard.
I've never crashed with Starcraft II. Never.
There have been bugs, but shockingly few compared to industry standards (which are low, low, _low).